Development of Components for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles by Design for Excellence Concepts

Currently, the energy sector is placing its bets on offshore wind power, which employs wind turbines with fixed and floating platforms. The use of interventive autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) to assist in the maintenance and control of underwater structures can greatly benefit this technology. A wireless charger system, which allows the AUV to charge its batteries via a docking station, can extend the time the AUV remains underwater. The current work describes the development of a wireless charger housing component for a wireless charging system to be implemented in an AUV (WCH). This product was created using the design for excellence and modular design principles. The Ashby method was used to select appropriate materials. A linear static finite element analysis was used to validate the prototypes' structural performance (FEA). The results showed that using FEA in conjunction with well-defined design goals allows for WCH optimization while ensuring up to 75% power efficiency.